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Joined: Dec 2000
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It's in Anaheim, CA This poor pump was at work every time I went by for about 4 days in our recent rain storm.
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Joined: Jun 2003
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The Mutual Aid companies being unable to connect to the stricken dept's hydrants has many points of origin - the one I heard was NYC in the 1890 - 1900's. Wish I had a pic of a "titty" hydrant (a hydrant with just (2) 2 1/2" ("Deuce and a half") ports on it.) The "Steamer" can be one of many different sizes (3 1/2" - 6") and threads - some cities (NYC, for ex.) still use "proprietary" threads. The side ports are 2 1/2" NST - National Standard Thread - so any arriving company can utilize them. BTW - the "National Standard" of dia., thread pitch and TPI was determined a few years after one of those "y'all come" debacles described here...
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Joined: Jul 2004
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So why do the oddballs have their own proprietary threads? Is there some advantage to this? It seems to my that it all downside, with nothing to gain. It costs more, probably a lot more, because you have to have everything made custom, and you're really hosed if you need help from the next town over. I don't see any gain at all.
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Joined: Jul 2003
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I think the reason we don't have a standard is installed infrastructure. When an area has hundreds or thousands of existing hydrants and miles of fire hose, conversion just is not economically feasable. I worked with a volunteer department near Denver and we had taps and dies to convert to the Denver standard. For cost reasons, we bought equipment anywhere we could find a good price. The thread diameter was standard but the pitch was slightly different. Since fire protection in the US dates back 200 years or so, communication was poor and each area probably just set a standard as the need arose.
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Joined: Jul 2004
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Joined: Jun 2003
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I can't help but wonder if the proprietary threads date back to when bigger cities had multiple fire companies operating in different neighborhoods.
Remember, back in "the day" fire companies used to fight over who would put out the fire, since the insurance companies paid the first folks to 'water' the fire. Maybe the modern mindset was "NY water for NYFD only", "Boston water for Boston FD", etc.
Also, as anyone who's worked for a municipality can tell you, once the wheels start turning, it's hard as hell to change their direction. Once all the engines got hoses with thread 'x', it was "cheaper" to keep special ordering new hydrants with thread 'x' than:
a) get all new 'spuds' (the threaded part of the hydrant port) for all of the city hydrants, and pay the water guys to install them, and
b) get all new couplings for the engines and hoses.
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Joined: Jul 2002
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Look Ma, no threads!. We use Hermaphrodite couplings here for our hoses. The Female end is used on all Pumps and Stand-pipes (the section of pipe that we fit into the Hydrant in the road). You can see the corresponding Male end to the right of the picture, sticking out of the hose tray
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Trumpy, do you guys have stortz connectors over there? They are genderless couplings that lock with a quarter turn.
The township I volunteer in uses NST threads as does most of the country. One of our neighboring towns uses NYC threads, not sure why but they do. We had a fire in a remote area and were setting up a tanker fill station at the water treatment plant for our neighboring town, which happened to be in our town, and couldn't figure out why we couldn't hook up to the hydrants, they were kind enough to install their own hydrants in the plant, not that big of a problem because we carry an adapter, but still threw us off for a bit.
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Joined: Jul 2002
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JCooper, do you guys have stortz connectors over there? Yes we do, but they are more limited to Rural firefighting use. Sorry there actually is a thread in that particular picture. That "Combining Breeching" to the lower left of the pump panel, unscrews and has a 150mm dia thread to take a Suction hose.
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Joined: Oct 2004
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I've carried what seemed like a 55 gallon drum of fittings around. Literaly one high side compartment filled with them, and we were standardized, except: The vetrans home that had 4 1/2" hydrants. The old sections of hydranted area that didn't have Stortz hydrants. The National Park Service tankers that for reasons I will never understand only had 1 1/2" discharges. The few 2x 2 1/2 only hydrants left at the research farm. Relay pumping the above ground water main. (We carried 1500' of 5" on each engine, and had 3.) You get the idea, and the list goes on. This was a small department. That's a dry hydrant. Leave one cracked open sometime. Forms a sink hole. This is a wet hydrant: This is not the correct technique: The correct technique is to get behind the BWM and push it clear with the engine. It can be done. Park infront of a hydrant in Chicago for a demo.
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